A Seer's Gaze
by Shinsei Tonbo
Summary: A young girl peaks Sherlock's curiosity when she hangs off of John during a case. What's even more interesting are the names she has given them, without ever seeing them in action, and the language she speaks that no but John seems to understand.


It had been a murder at a sanatorium. Four people dead, all patients and orderlies, but no one was missing and there were no entries to the visitors log. It had enticed Sherlock at once, the self-proclaimed sociopath watched the other patients as he examined the bodies. And just watching him caused John to grin, the man-child half performing for the people around him half seriously thinking about all he was seeing.

In the end though, it had been both disturbing and anticlimactic all at once. These types of cases always caused Sherlock to be petulant and surly afterwards.

The head of the sanatorium, Astoria Jones, had been keeping her son locked up in the unused part of the building. It had been abandoned years ago due to the newer technology installed that made it easier to take care of the patients in the other wing of the building and thus left the entire area empty and ripe for others' uses. He had escaped after she'd had to leave early to help with an unplanned visit from a big donor, in her haste she had not secured his restraints nor did she bolt the door before she left. When the patients and orderlies had gotten in the way he'd killed them, nothing in his mind telling him it was wrong.

Out of everything about the case that had caught his attention, the one person that held Sherlock's attention of the course of it was a young girl that seemed to be drawn to John whenever they were there.

She was about thirteen if he had gotten her age right from her appearance, and he usually was. Her long black hair was stringy and unkempt with large clear blue eyes that never seemed to focus on what was in front of her but something beyond all of them, like a daydream. She was pale and had scars from what he had determined to be self mutilation, possibly from the frustration of no one understanding her words, with fresh wounds on her hands from her nails. Unconnected words poured from her mouth to John, some in English, some he didn't think belonged to any language, but still his blogger was attentive as if everything she said was important.

She had giggled when he had looked at her, hanging off of John's bad shoulder without consequence, looked Sherlock in the eyes and called him Sight, even after he had tried to correct her several time and caused him great irritation, she refused to call him anything else. It wasn't until one of the orderlies had pulled him told him that the girl never called anyone by name but by a main descriptor, that he truly began to be curious. She had not seen him in action, how had she known to call him that?

What was more curious was what she had called John, when it was English she used to speak with, whom she had seemed to like the most out of all of them. She called him Sand or Time, always inconsistent, but he always knew when to answer to whatever name she called him. Even more disconcerting was when she talked of Word and how he responded in kind to her odd phrases. She said things that made no sense to him or her keepers but John knew. He responded to her gibberish, and it was gibberish, something unrecognisable full of lilting vowels and hisses and clicks, as if she'd just said something in English.

It was another thing that caught his attention—how did John understand her?

No one else had noticed, the two had been quiet, but when Sherlock observed he used his all senses to take in all of his surroundings to find the patterns and discern their meaning, he Saw just as she had called him Sight.

What was more attention catching was at the after they'd found Mr. Jones had returned to the sanatorium. It had been past midnight when they had tracked him back to the scene where he had bit and scratched at them before the Yarders had been able to subdue him themselves.

The girl had come pelting out at them, screeching for John, slapping hands of orderlies and nurses, biting and kicking the officers until she had made it to him, heaving for breath, hair and eyes wild. She had truly seemed crazy, her teeth and eyes flashing as she fought to get to them. Rabid, like an animal, his brain supplied as he watched he flatmate calm her down. He had been many things over the years, a junkie, fixated on the most incongruous of things, wild with his discoveries, but never had he been so out of control as the girl seemed to be at that moment of time.

More of the gibberish had poured out of her mouth as John knelt in front of her, her hands coming up to frame his face and looking him in the eye. John had frozen and sadness seemed to flicker across his face for a few seconds before it cleared. When Sonya, the girl's name Sherlock had learned, was done John had hugged her and stood, taking her hand and leading her over to the night nurse, promising to come back and see her before she was led back inside. She hugged him once more before skipping away all giggles once more, no sign of the ferocity that lay behind that laugh. When he walked over to where he, Lestrade, and Mycroft stood he was looking at him and his brother with an odd combination of sadness, resignation, and loneliness. The loneliness was a deep ache that even he could feel, something more potent than he had ever felt before, and he couldn't help but wonder what had enabled John to feel such a thing when he was so absurdly normal.

It was Mycroft who asked the question he'd been trying to answer all evening without out asking, "What language was she speaking Dr. Watson? I've never heard it before and according to all of the documents kept on the tests and translators they've had speak with her none have been able to decipher it."

John's grin was mischievous when he looked at him, all traces of his darker emotions gone, "If I were to tell you, Mycroft, it would be the end to the game, wouldn't it? I'm sure Sherlock would be awfully sore at you for spoiling it."

Mycroft couldn't help raising an eyebrow in a believably regal manor, "Yes I suppose you are correct." He shot a glance at his younger, more volatile brother, "Very well, will you tell us what she told you? It seemed to be of the utmost importance for you to know."

Sherlock watched his colleague—flat-mate, blogger, _friend—_waffle between telling them or not, when he glanced at him. Dark blue-green eyes met blue grey and Sherlock saw when John caved and decided to tell them, his gaze remained steady as he began to speak and his words started sparks, going neurons firing trying to connect what was said to what it meant, however he could tell that he was obscuring something in the names, for they could only be names, with the same language.

"She told me what she dreamed, that's all, Mycroft, but I'll tell you anyway.'The _Poisonous Spider_ threatens _Obscure Sight_ and his mate the _Sands of Time_. Their brothers the _Manipulative Shadow_ and _Man's Word_ follow them; _Sand_ and the _Word_ teaching _Shadow_ and _Sight_ how to live as they were supposed to. The _Spider_ will be defeated but only with the first blink of _Sight_ and the burning ashes of the _Shadow_. After his demise they will watch the world and man continue to grow forever more.' Does it make sense to you?"

Mycroft shook his head and sighed, "Thank you for satiating my curiosity, Doctor. I bid you and Sherlock a good night." He tipped his head towards the grey haired man next him, "DI Lestrade."

As they left the officers and Lestrade, Sherlock couldn't help but ask, "You know what the names in that story—"

"Prophecy."

"Pardon?"

"She was telling me a prophecy, at least that's the best thing I know to call it. She isn't the first one to tell me one."

Grey-blue eyes looked at him incredulously, "A prophecy? Really John?"

John couldn't help the sigh that past his lips as he continued to walk towards their home, "Yep, really. There are many things in this world, Sherlock, that we can't really explain. Usually only those who are connected to them see them, but every once in a while . . . Well, stranger things have happened, after all."

Sherlock stopped and watched as John continued walking, his gait sure and no evidence what so ever that he'd ever had a limp. He could have sworn it was his imagination, but he was sure that as John walked farther away from him they were suddenly in some desert, years, decades, millennia before now. The only difference Sherlock could see in John were his clothes, they were loose, meant for survival in the intense heat of the day.

John had never seemed more comfortable than he did in that moment.

Then Sherlock blinked and the image disappeared and all he saw was John in his oversized jumper and jeans walking along the slick streets of London instead of amongst dunes of sand.

For some reason he felt like he had just witnessed a piece of history, a truth, that he was never privy too before about his friend.

He couldn't help but grin as he ran to catch up with the ex army doctor, he knew it was a good idea to have him as a flat mate, things were never going to be boring and he believed they never would be with John next to him.

"So," he huffed as he resumed pace with John, "Chinese?"


End file.
